Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) (28 page)

“Emma loves to swim,” she said. “She’s
always talking about the beach or something.” Sophia laughed, her
sweet, trusting laugh, and I pulled on the shirt. My clothes having
tags wouldn’t make her a liar, and God knows I didn’t need another
problem to deal with today. “She told me you two were becoming good
friends.”

“Yeah. She’s great.” She went on about Emma,
and I tuned her out and opened the little door in my closet. I
pulled out Catherine’s diary and checked the pages I’d marked.

“Did you hear me, love?” Sophia asked, right
outside of my closet. I hid the diary and pushed my jeans to cover
the door.

“No.”

Slowly, I walked out. She looked over my
shoulder before looking into my eyes.

“I said I had a few errands to run, and I’ll
be back later. Maybe later than usual.”

“Bye,” I said. She kissed me on my cheek and
left with a snap.

I sat at my desk, watching the door, waiting
for him to knock.

“CC,” I said, knowing she’d come if I called
her. “Do you think he loves me enough to look past it?” I shivered
and opened the laptop.

You’ve let the slightest thing interrupt
you. You’re psychic, so you know exactly what will happen, and
you’re avoiding it. And that’s wise. He could tell someone your
secret. It’s best if you two just break up, if you ask me.

I sighed and closed the laptop. “I’m sorry I
said anything. You don’t have to worry about me talking to you
anymore.”

She left again, going back to her husband
who had yet to acknowledge me, I guessed.

If the daughter I hid with all of my riches
asked me for relationship advice, I’d be encouraging. I’d bring up
the time it worked out with her father. CC was someone completely
different than the girl who wrote in that diary. Maybe Raymond’s
death had changed her. I shivered as I wondered if he’d died while
she was pregnant and she’d had to wait to kill herself, dreading
living with life inside of her.

I rocked back in my chair, startled out of
my skin, when Nate knocked and sang my name.

I’d never walked slower than I did to answer
the door. He picked me up and showered my face with kisses. It was
the happiest I’d ever seen him. Great.

“Last night was the best night of sleep I’ve
ever gotten in my life. Almost eighteen years of laying my head
down and no night comes close. Maybe because of the song.” He put
me down only to wrap his arms around my waist. “Oh! Guess what I
dreamed.”

“What?”

“You were running in this blue ball gown and
jumped in the pool. Then you climbed out and tried to scramble eggs
outside on the concrete. It was so random.”

Our fingers locked together, the most
effortless action ever.

“That
is
random. Why didn’t I just go
inside?”

He chuckled. “I don’t know. You just really
wanted those eggs, I guess. I expected to see you eating that this
morning. Now at least we know I’m not psychic like
hunter-scum.”

The silence was so tense that I thought he
might figure it out right then.

I stared at our hands. The wounds I hadn’t
felt in days stung suddenly.

He threw me over his shoulder before I could
say that we needed to talk. CC was right. I
was
avoiding it,
and I had an idea of how he’d take it.

He jumped down to the second floor, making
me giggle against my will.

“Is that Chris?” Emma asked. “Nathan, bring
her here.” He took me to Emma’s room and sat me down on the bed.
For some reason, that made me giddy. I never used to sit on
Whitney’s bed. It had always felt like I couldn’t, like we weren’t
close enough for that. Nate sat next to me, and Emma cleared her
throat. “Out. This is girl talk. No Nathans allowed.”

He chuckled and walked with his hands on his
hips, twisting, to the door. “Au revoir. You have exactly five
minutes, Emma, and I’ll be back.” He kissed his fingers, in a very
French sort of way, mocking her.

She snapped her fingers, and the door
slammed in his face. “So … the pool?”

I smiled at my hands. “It was fun.”

“Fun … like?” I groaned. “Come on.
Dish.”

“Fun like, being in a pool with your
boyfriend … then spending the night with him.” She squealed. “With
your clothes on.”

“
Booo
. Well … it was almost
interesting. Next time I’ll make the bikini a little racier.” She
sat across from me on her bed, tucking her legs underneath her. “I
also had an interesting night,” she said and sighed. “Remi ended
our friendship. After everyone in my life – my parents, Sophie,
Paul – told me to leave her alone, she comes in my room and says
that she hates me and that we’re done.”

She laughed and shook her head. “That’s a
good thing. She’s …”

“She’s
something
,” Emma said. “Really
something. I wanted to help her, but you can’t fix that kind of
crazy with dancing and margaritas. I mean … the girl actually likes
getting captured. It’s like a hobby of hers. I thought it was fun
until I got around normal people again.”

She winked at me, but I wasn’t normal.

“Anyway, I don’t expect her to stick around
much longer. I just wanted to tell you because she also said some
things about you. She told me to watch my back around you. She said
you were crazy.”

She fell back on her pillows, like she
wasn’t afraid at all, like she didn’t believe Remi. She needed to
believe Remi.

“Enough girl talk,” Nate said outside of the
door. “I’m hungry.”

“Eat without her,” Emma yelled.

“Not possible. I can’t seem to function
without her. She’s my life.”

In unison, Emma and I crooned,
“
Awww
.”

He was smiling like that had been a joke
when I opened the door. I still jumped in his arms, kissing him.
Enjoying this while I still had it. “I love you,” I whispered,
nervous and unsure if he’d say it back again.

“I love you too.”

I smiled and exhaled loudly. “Let’s get
breakfast and talk. We didn’t do much of that last night.”

“I remember that being your fault,” he
whispered.

Paul walked up behind Nate, nodding
suggestively, and slowly raised his hand for the high-five he
hadn’t gotten yet.

“Please, just do it,” I said.

“Yes!” Paul said, when their hands smacked
in the air, like he’d won a prize or something.

If I had to choose a moment I didn’t want to
end, it would be this one – in my boyfriend’s arms after saying
I love you
, my friend smiling at us from her room, Nate also
connecting with someone after years of being alone like me. But my
instincts told me that all good things must come to an end.

And the doorbell reminded me that I was
psychic.

The four of us just stood there for a moment
after hearing the impossible sound. None of us needed the doorbell.
My mind went to the worst of scenarios – that Lydia Shaw was behind
the door.

“Paul…” Nate said. Paul nodded and went down
the stairs at the same moment as Nate closed Emma in her room. Then
he sprinted up to the third floor and closed me in mine. I couldn’t
stay inside.

For one, I was sure if something happened it
would be my fault. And if we were going to survive this, everyone
should be in my room, where my enemy couldn’t get to us.

I ran down the stairs, slowing when I heard
the commotion. Remi struggled with Nate to get to the door. “Get
out of my way, Sparky. It’s for me,” she said.

“Why the hell would you invite someone
here?” Nathan asked. “How did they get in the gate?”

“I opened it. Get over it,” she said. The
doorbell rang again, and the front door opened. Whoever it was,
brought a lot of noise in with him. His thoughts blasted like the
kids at school, like humans, like Remi. “Liam, you’re right on
time.”

“He’s not coming in this house,” Paul
said.

“Hello, Remi,” the guy said, in an English
accent. “Introduce me to your friends.”

“Trust me, I don’t have friends,” Remi said.
Liam sized up Nathan and Paul in his mind, wondering which was the
dog and which was the wizard she’d told him about. And he was …
excited. Thrilled, really, to meet them, to know that Remi hadn’t
made them up.

He was a hunter, the hunter who’d purged
her, the guy she wanted to impress. I almost ran down there,
feeling completely capable of ending this right here, right now,
but I remembered I was a missing person. A missing copy.

“Come in, Liam,” Remi said. Her thoughts
were loud too, telling her plan to lead him to the other two prizes
upstairs. She didn’t have time to take new pictures, so she was
letting him see for himself.

I thought about what would happen, and I saw
it. It had been days since I’d been pulled into a vision. Whitney
giving me the mask was the last one. But I was different in this
vision. I didn’t curl up and take it. Not even close. I raised her
hunter friend, who must be a dirty blonde with gray eyes, into the
air and forced his body through a window. Blood and glass scattered
on the living room floor. I stalked away from him to Remi. Fire
flared from my hands, and Nate ran out of the door in a panic. Then
Paul and Emma followed, leaving me alone again.

I pulled out of the misty vision and caught
my breath.

I couldn’t be that person. Not if I wanted
Nate to look past me being a copy. Not if I wanted to keep my other
friends too. I didn’t bother running to my room. I needed to move
faster than that. I opened my eyes in front of my desk and grabbed
my phone.

Sophia had stopped me before. I needed her
again.

“Hello, my love,” she said after one
ring.

“Sophia, I need you.”

“What’s wrong, dear?”

“I know this is going to sound weird, but I
know for a fact that Remi is no longer a panther, and the person
who changed her is in the house.”

The phone made a startling noise in my ear,
like something was wrong with the connection.

She flashed into the room and inspected me
in a panic. “I’m fine. Nate and Paul are down there.”

“Lock the door,” she said and vanished.

I sat on the floor and tucked my head
between my knees. I hadn’t prayed in days, but I needed to now. I’d
needed to the entire time here. This whole situation was dangerous.
Everyone was at risk, especially the guy I loved.

What if something happened down there?
Something I could’ve stopped by opening my mouth sooner? Something
that would be my fault because I’d pissed her off? What if he was
hurt? That was enough to get me up and out of the door.

And I ran. Eyes closed and fingers crossed,
on my way to kill. I’d been in this dark place many times before.
In the cafeteria, countless times in a classroom, and in the halls.
God, the halls were the worst, people bumping me, provoking me. But
those kills would’ve been selfish. This would be for all of us.
This hunter had to go. This girl had to die.

I collided against a body. I opened my eyes
and still couldn’t see, still raptured in the rage I’d fought so
hard. But I could feel him, his arms, his hands, and Christine
couldn’t help but respond to him.

“Nate,” I said. He kissed my cheek and
carried me back to my room. I wrapped my entire body around him,
elated to see him in one piece. “What happened? Is it over?”

“Sophia threw the guy and Remi out.
Everything’s fine.” I wasn’t entirely sure, but I thought I felt
Nate sniff my neck. “She was actually already packed.”

I didn’t imagine the sniff, he did it again.
I unhooked my legs from his waist so I could have his full
attention.

“Nate, that guy! She brought him here on
purpose. That idiot!” He tightened his arms around me and kissed my
cheek again.

“I wouldn’t have let anything happen. I
think he was just here to pick her up,” he whispered. “She left on
a motorcycle with him.”

“Did he hurt you? I swear if he did-” Nate
chuckled.

“You have no idea what you’re doing right
now, do you?” he mumbled.

“No. Nate, tell me more about what happened
down there. What did the guy say to you?”

He kissed my neck and chuckled again. “Let
me see if I can get the accent right,” he said. “-ello there, ‘ole
chap. I’m Liam. I smell like old, rotting meat. I’m -ere for Remi.”
He laughed at his horrible impersonation of Liam – who he couldn’t
know was a hunter or else he’d be panicking right now. “Sophia
walked into the living room and went nuts on Remi. Now she’s gone,
said she’s moving in with her new boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? Did she say that?” He nodded
against my neck, and his hands moved lower on my back.

“Are you sure he didn’t hurt you? If he did,
I swear I-”

“You’re doing it again,” he whispered. “Your
angry voice. You can be unbearably sexy at times. Did you know
that?”

I sighed, losing my focus because he had
none. “I’m not always sexy?”

One of his hands traveled up my back, all
the way up to my face. “Typically, you’re adorable and sweet. But
I’ve noticed that when you’re angry or your temperature hikes for …
other reasons…” He kissed my neck. “You smell more like spice than
cake batter.” He sniffed me a third time. “It’s unreal how great
you smell then. I almost want to make you mad just to get another
whiff of it.”

I smiled. That was a new take on my anger.
Sexy, not murderous. I could live with that.

He kissed me, softly at first, then hard
enough to rock me on my feet. Of course I kissed him back. I didn’t
want to be rude, even though he was being incredibly random, drunk
almost.

I pulled away and caught my breath. His eyes
were on my lips. “Baby,” I said, trying to get us back on topic. He
moaned and chuckled.

“That just makes it worse. Baby. Nate. Any
affectionate term in your voice makes me feel … important.
Loved.”